Elgg needs a special folder to store uploaded files including profile
icons and photos. You will need to create this directory.

Warning

For security reasons, this folder MUST be stored outside of your
document root. If you created it under /www/ or /public_html/, you’re
doing it wrong.

Once this folder has been created, you’ll need to make sure the web
server Elgg is running on has permission to write to and create
directories in it. This shouldn’t be a problem on Windows-based servers,
but if your server runs Linux, Mac OS X or a UNIX variant, you’ll need
to set the permissions on the directory.

If you are using a graphical FTP client to upload files, you can
usually set permissions by right clicking on the folder and
selecting ‘properties’ or ‘Get Info’.

Note

Directories must be executable to be read and written to. The
suggested permissions depend upon the exact server and user
configuration. If the data directory is owned by the web server
user, the recommended permissions are 770.

Setting your data directory to 777 will work, but it is insecure
and is not recommended. If you are unsure how to correctly set
permissions, contact your host for more information.

Using your database administration tool of choice (if you’re unsure
about this, ask your system administrator), create a new MySQL database
for Elgg. You can create a MySQL database with any of the following
tools:

Make sure you add a user to the database with all privileges and record
the database name, username and password. You will need this information
when installing Elgg.

Elgg uses timed requests to your site to perform background tasks like
sending notifications or performing database cleanup jobs. You need
to configure the cron to be able to use those kind of features.

Once you’ve performed these steps, visit your Elgg site in your web
browser. Elgg will take you through the rest of the installation process
from there. The first account that you create at the end of the
installation process will be an administrator account.

elgg-config/settings.php, which contains local environment configuration for your installation

.htaccess, which allows Elgg to generate dynamic URLs

If these files can’t be automatically generated, for example because the
web server doesn’t have write permissions in the directories, Elgg will
tell you how to create them. You could also temporarily change the
permissions on the root directory and the engine directory. Set the
permissions on those two directories so that the web server can write
those two files, complete the install process, and them change the
permissions back to their original settings. If, for some reason, this
won’t work, you will need to:

In elgg-config/, copy settings.example.php to settings.php, open it up
in a text editor and fill in your database details

Keep notes on steps that you take to fix the install. Sometimes changing
some setting or file to try to fix a problem may cause some other
problem later on. If you need to start over, just delete all the files,
drop your database, and begin again.

I can’t save my settings on installation (I get a 404 error when saving settings)¶

Elgg relies on the mod_rewrite Apache extension in order to simulate
certain URLs. For example, whenever you perform an action in Elgg, or
when you visit a user’s profile, the URL is translated by the server
into something Elgg understands internally. This is done using rules
defined in an .htaccess file, which is Apache’s standard way of
defining extra configuration for a site.

This error suggests that the mod_rewrite rules aren’t being picked
up correctly. This may be for several reasons. If you’re not comfortable
implementing the solutions provided below, we strongly recommend that
you contact your system administrator or technical support and forward
this page to them.

The .htaccess, if not generated automatically (that happens when you
have problem with mod_rewrite), you can create it by renaming
install/config/htaccess.dist file you find with elgg package to .htaccess. Also
if you find a .htaccess file inside the installation path, but you
are still getting 404 error, make sure the contents of .htaccess are
same as that of install/config/htaccess.dist.

``mod_rewrite`` isn’t installed.

Check your httpd.conf to make sure that this module is being loaded
by Apache. You may have to restart Apache to get it to pick up any
changes in configuration. You can also use PHP info to check to see
if the module is being loaded.

The rules in ``.htaccess`` aren’t being obeyed.

In your virtual host configuration settings (which may be contained
within httpd.conf), change the AllowOverride setting so that it
reads:

AllowOverrideall

This will tell Apache to pick up the mod_rewrite rules from
.htaccess.

Elgg is not installed in the root of your web directory (ex:
http://example.org/elgg/ instead of http://example.org/)

The install script redirects me to “action” when it should be “actions”¶

This is a problem with your mod_rewrite setup.
DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT change any directory names!

If you installed Elgg so that it is reached with an address like
http://example.org/mysite/ rather than http://example.org/, there is a
small chance that the rewrite rules in .htaccess will not be processed
correctly. This is usually due to using an alias with Apache. You may
need to give mod_rewrite a pointer to where your Elgg installation is.

Open up .htaccess in a text editor

Where prompted, add a line like
RewriteBase/path/to/your/elgg/installation/ (Don’t forget the
trailing slash)

Save the file and refresh your browser.

Please note that the path you are using is the web path, minus the
host.

Please note that installing in a subdirectory does not require using
RewriteBase. There are only some rare circumstances when it is needed
due to the set up of the server.

I did everything! mod_rewrite is working fine, but still the 404 error¶

Maybe there is a problem with the file .htaccess. Sometimes the elgg
install routine is unable to create one and unable to tell you that. If
you are on this point and tried everything that is written above:

check if it is really the elgg-created .htaccess (not only a dummy
provided from the server provider)

if it is not the elgg provided htaccess file, use the htaccess_dist
(rename it to .htaccess)

I get an error message that the rewrite test failed after the requirements check page¶

I get the following messages after the requirements check step (step 2) of the install:

We think your server is running the Apache web server.

The rewrite test failed and the most likely cause is that AllowOverride is not set to All for Elgg’s directory. This prevents
Apache from processing the .htaccess file which contains the rewrite rules.

A less likely cause is Apache is configured with an alias for your Elgg directory and you need to set the RewriteBase in
your .htaccess. There are further instructions in the .htaccess file in your Elgg directory.

After this error, everinteraction with the web interface results in a error 500 (Internal Server Error)

This is likely caused by not loading the “filter module by un-commenting the

#LoadModule filter_module modules/mod_filter.so

line in the “httpd.conf” file.

the Apache “error.log” file will contain an entry similar to:

... .htaccess: Invalid command ‘AddOutputFilterByType’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

If you see a 404 error during the install or on the creation of the
first user with a url like:
http://example.com/homepages/26/d147515119/htdocs/elgg/action/register
that means your site url is incorrect in your sites_entity table in
your database. This was set by you on the second page of the install.
Elgg tries to guess the correct value but has difficulty with shared
hosting sites. Use phpMyAdmin to edit this value to the correct base
url.

This is highly server specific so it is difficult to give specific
advice. If you have created a directory for uploading data, make sure
your http server can access it. The easiest (but least secure) way to do
this is give it permissions 777. It is better to give the web server
ownership of the directory and limit the permissions.

The top cause of this issue is PHP configured to prevent access to most
directories using open_basedir. You may want to check with your
hosting provider on this.

Make sure the path is correct and ends with a /. You can check the path
in your database in the config table.

If you only have ftp access to your server and created a directory but
do not know the path of it, you might be able to figure it out from the
www file path set in your config database table. Asking for help from
your hosting help team is recommended at this stage.

I can’t validate my admin account because I don’t have an email server!¶

While it’s true that normal accounts (aside from those created from the
admin panel) require their email address to be authenticated before they
can log in, the admin account does not.

Once you have registered your first account you will be able to log in
using the credentials you have provided!

I have tried all of these suggestions and I still cannot install Elgg¶

It is possible that during the process of debugging your install you
have broken something else. Try doing a clean install:

drop your elgg database

delete your data directory

delete the Elgg source files

start over

If that fails, seek the help of the Elgg community.
Be sure to mention what version of Elgg you are installing, details of
your server platform, and any error messages that you may have received
including ones in the error log of your server.